Aardman
Abruptly Halts Animated Feature!(by digitalmediafx.com) Aardman Animations abruptly halted
production on its Tortoise vs. Hare film, laying off 90
people in the process. Most of those laid off were stop motion
animators, artists, and camera workers. The move came only days
after Prince Charles visited Aardman (as written about in the
July 1 edition of the dFX
Animation and FX Newsletter) and praised the work of
all the staff.

Aardman claims
that there are major script problems with the movie and it will
have to undergo a complete overhaul before production can continue.
It is estimated that production will be stopped for approximately
six months.

Arthur Sheriff,
spokesperson for Aardman claims that the layoffs are temporary
and that the company is devastated for having to do the layoffs.
Sheriff also said that halting the production to fix problems
is more important than putting out an average film. Aardman received
high praise for last year's Chicken Run movie, which walked
off with several high-profile awards, including an Animatasia
Award for Best Animated Feature.

172 people
were working on Tortoise vs. Hare at the time of the layoffs
on Wednesday. Those left have been assigned to other projects.

"...Though
the summer movie season is best exemplified by the parade of special-effects
popcorn adventures pitched at the insanely lucrative young-male
audience, this is also the hot season for family films. In fact,
DreamWorks' animated Shrek became the first $200 million
hit of the summer and looks as if it might end up as the season's
top box-office draw. And Disney followed with its latest animated
feature, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, though that one has
not yet drawn audiences at the level of previous Disney animated
films "